Just as some residents and shop owners in FESTAC Town in Lagos were left shattered after a tanker explosion, another petrol tanker has also gone up in flames in Abuja.
Petrol tanker on fire in Abuja.
A petrol tanker which was said to be offloading fuel at about 5:55 p.m on Wednesday, was engulfed by fire at a Conoil filling station, along the airport road in Abuja, and the fire was eventually put out at about 7:10 p.m. by fire service officials.
According to Premium Times, an official of the fire services, Gidado Ismail, who spoke on the possible cause of the fire said; “Probably there was high temperature while discharging the fuel.
“There are no casualties and the building is safe. It is only the fuel and the tanker that was affected.”
The Divisional Police Officer at Lugbe police station, Tunde Kabiru, who also spoke on the possible cause of the fire, said, “What we heard was that Conoil tanker came to discharge fuel and suddenly there was a fire outbreak from the underground tank.”
A petrol attendant at the filling station said the petrol tanker had been there for two weeks and the fire outbreak happened in the process of discharging the fuel.
“The mouth that connected the hose and underground tank started leaking, suddenly the underground tank caught fire,” the attendant said.
The attendant explained that although a tanker can only spend a maximum of two days at the station, the particular tanker was short of about 2000 litres and therefore the station could not discharge its content.
“We cannot collect the fuel if the litres are not complete and a driver cannot move if he is not discharged of the product he is carrying.
“We did not have fuel today so we decided to discharge the truck by emptying the fuel into our tank before the incident happened.
“The driver of the tanker ran away when he was told to move the tanker away after it caught fire,” the attendant said.
The manager of the filling station declined comment when contacted. “I cannot say anything now, I don’t know what to say,” the manager said.